Transport Committee on April 29th, 2010

[John McKenna]

First of all, we will make the 2008 study on the security charges available to all members of the committee, for your information. We'll send it to Ms. Charron, of course.

One of the big challenges we have in putting together this guidebook for small operators—because we do believe that an adapted SMS is beneficial to all types of operators—is that we have to convince Transport Canada in our dialogue with them that one size doesn't fit all. That's our biggest challenge. In putting together this guide, the biggest challenge we have is to get Transport Canada's seal of approval on it and to get them to understand what SMS means for a smaller operator.

As Marco said earlier, in small operations, some guy will have two or three hats in the company, rather than two or three employees. So it has to be adapted to fit that type of operation. We do believe that it is beneficial for all types of operators, but the big challenge is getting Transport Canada to understand this.

[The Vice-Chair (Hon. Joseph Volpe), Liberal, Joe Volpe]

Mr. Bevington, you have about half a minute.

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Western Arctic, NT]

Mr. Jones, we had a very serious incident about helicopters off the coast of Newfoundland. Do you really think that the voluntary enforcement action that Transport Canada now does with recognized safety issues is appropriate, in light of what happened with that incident off the coast of Newfoundland?

[Fred Jones]

The devil is in the detail in Transport Canada's voluntary enforcement program. The companies apply a similar program, where they say “We will not take disciplinary action against an employee because they come forward and say they have done something wrong”.

There are exceptions to those rules, and Transport Canada applies the same principles. They are things that make perfect sense to us: if it was intentional, if there is any sort of criminal intent, if it's repeated misconduct, what were the consequences... So there are a number of exceptions to voluntary compliance. Transport Canada's policy is if the operator comes forward to Transport Canada and identifies a problem or a safety issue inside the company and says “Here's what we're doing about it”. Let's say it hasn't resulted in an incident or an accident, but they say they've identified the safety problem, and incidentally it may be a violation of the regulations as well, and here's what they're doing to correct it.

It makes perfect sense to us that Transport Canada would not take enforcement action against that company because everybody makes mistakes—unintentionally, obviously; you wouldn't do it under intentional circumstances. And if they're doing the right thing to correct the problem, it's probably an issue that would have never come to the attention of Transport Canada.

SMS is based on openness with the regulator. It's based on openness inside the company so that employees come forward without fear of reprisal to say “We messed up, but we're fixing it”.

[The Vice-Chair (Hon. Joseph Volpe), Liberal, Joe Volpe]

Thank you, Mr. Jones.

On that positive note, I think I'm going to have to bring the meeting to a close.

I want to thank all of the representatives, Monsieur Boucher, Monsieur Skrobica, Monsieur McKenna, Monsieur Jones, Monsieur Prud'Homme, and Monsieur Nourse. Thank you for sharing with us your perceptions and your experience. I can assure you that they will be part of the reflections we're going to go through as we write our report both on SMS and on the security side. Thank you once again.

Colleagues, please be prepared to receive a phone call from Ms. Charron regarding the starting time of the meeting on Tuesday. It may change, but not necessarily so. Thank you for your cooperation.

The meeting is adjourned.